A Man for All Seasons
Last night, Ken and I finally watched "A Man for All Seasons," the story of Sir Thomas More and his conflict with King Henry VIII. While there were many memorable speeches and lines from Thomas More, this was Ken's favorite, and an excellent one it is, too. More is speaking to his daughter, Margaret, about whether he will take an oath swearing that the king is the head of the church in England (an oath that would require him, against his faith, to agree to the king's divorce and marriage to Anne Boleyn).
"God made the angels to show Him splendor, as He made animals for innocence and plants for their simplicity. But Man He made to serve Him wittily, in the tangle of his mind. If He suffers us to come to such a case that there is no escaping, then we may stand to our tackle as best we can, and, yes, Meg, then we can clamor like champions, if we have the spittle for it. But it's God's part, not our own, to bring ourselves to such a pass. Our natural business lies in escaping."
Yeah! Find me a movie made since 1980 that has a passage of dialogue as rich and dense with meanings. I love that it starts out sort of fatuous, like he's had to come up with thumbnail raisons d'etre for this stuff that he really doesn't have much regard for--angels, animals, plants--but then when he gets into his real area of interest, the human mind and its relationship to God (and the situation he's in), he really goes for it.
God, I love that movie.
Posted by:Jim Howard | April 18, 2008 at 11:47 AM